The History Of Colour TV

The History Of Colour TV began 2014 with a newly finished second album, one year after releasing their debut Emerald Cures Chic Ills on Saint Marie Records (US). Voluntarily adhering to a more stripped-down approach to production, the band nonetheless retain the sonic density of their previous releases.

When Shapes Of Spilt Blood Spelt Love matches its predecessor’s set of “unabashedly dramatic, sweeping rock songs” (PopMatters) with a rawer edge, fusing strategically sparse layers of guitars and reverb over cymbal-less drums and bass-heavy riffs. The vocals are clear-cut and advance solitarily through the flowing sound, creating a sonic language that is as upfront as it is dreamy, and an album that aesthetically falls somewhere between the epic M83-esque soundscapes of their debut and sequences of pop-sensitive songwriting, playing more like a Wild Nothings record from a misshapen parallel dimension.

Song structures meander, build and collapse in unpredictable ways, mirroring the dual nature of their potent lyrical content, in which extremes of light and darkness co-exist and interchange with unsettling ease.

Working predominately in Berlin, with additional elements tracked in France and the US, the album was recorded and mixed in a total of 30 days and nights. In keeping with the band’s typical work method, it was self-recorded and produced, with minimal outside intervention.

Starting out as a conceptual audio-visual project, The History Of Colour TV was created by Jaike Stambach in early 2010. After relocating to Berlin and releasing a string of cassette-only experimental EPs and videos, the project soon evolved into a full band line-up. The music underwent a slow but radical change, gradually incorporating dark, dreamy pop and abrasive electronic soundscapes. With a new focus solidly anchored in the song format, the band released the Colour TV EP in 2011, its fusion of “majestic pop melodies and rivet gun industrial swathes” (Louder Than War) being the first manifestation of the sound and style the The History Of Colour TV have been exploring since.